Ruairí Ó Murchú (Louth, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I do not believe that any of us is happy about the issue of public liability insurance. It was in the first six months of last year that we had a drop in the cost of motor insurance premiums of approximately 5%. I do not believe that anybody is of the view that this is sufficiently significant. The Government has indicated that 90% of its action plan for insurance reform is done and that the insurance industry is aware of what has to follow. I would expect that the issue relating to the duty-of-care legislation will be dealt with as soon as possible, in whatever shape or form. It is way beyond time that this was done.

With regard to public liability insurance, we have all heard Peter Boland of the Alliance for Insurance Reform and others speaking about a 14% increase in the cost of renewal premiums. This is before we consider those people who are caught up in circumstances of claims. People have insurance in the event that claims are brought against them. In some cases, people can find themselves in really desperate circumstances, so it is absolutely necessary. We know, however, that there is a particular issue in this regard. There are huge numbers of SMEs and businesses in the entertainment, tourism and leisure sectors that cannot get insurance and cannot get premiums that are fit to pay. We all know that there probably is not a company in Ireland that uses inflatables for its operations that can get the sort of insurance it requires. That is shocking. I would have always thought that when an issue reached a critical point that the system, with all its flaws, would catch it. Sometimes there is a major level of drift, and this is not acceptable.

Brendan Kenny, the CEO of Ireland's Association for Adventure Tourism, has spoken of 250 businesses that are threatened with closure. This would have an impact on those businesses, the people who own them, their employees and others. We talk about the tourism sector and how we want to sell Ireland, but any closures will have a massive impact. We are already in disastrous waters and are heading into far worse waters. We really need to call a halt to what is going on.

We have spoken before about the actions taken by the Office to Promote Competition in the Insurance Market. The Minister for Finance, Deputy Michael McGrath, has met with the insurance industry and told it about the dissatisfaction that exists, but we need to get beyond that and see action happening.

There has been an issue with regard to public liability insurance in that we do not have enough players in the market. I hope this matter has moved on slightly. The Minister of State, Deputy Byrne, will tell me that Ireland is a small market. This does not matter because at the end of the day we must be able to sustain these businesses. The buck stops with the Government, the Minister of State, the Minister for Finance and with others who deal with the insurance sector. Representatives of companies such as Zipit Forest Adventures, which is owned by Cool Running Events, have spoken to RTÉ about their problems. A number of companies in my constituency have had issues too. There were also insurance issues at one stage with regard to childcare. In some cases, a number of interests were able to come together and get group deals and so on. That is not always possible in other sectors.

I put it to the Minister of State that, in the context of all the difficulties that exist, we need to have an operational public liability insurance system that will work for SMEs or we are going to hit the wall.

I hope the Minister of State has some good news for me.

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